Calabrese Concerts

Here we are on an even year so that meant choir trip again! This year we returned to Italy, to Calabria, where the choir director's wife P comes from. She'd arranged a marvel of a trip that left us all breathless with the pace of everything but certainly having seen as wide a variety of landscape as can be achieved in just 7 days.

We flew to Bologna and then to Lamezia Terme, then by bus to our hotel, a network of holiday apartments situated on a cliff facing the sea and Stromboli's menacing silhouette on the horizon. To get to the beach, we sauntered down a path trimmed with geraniums and exotic, unrecognizable plants where lizards skittered underneath, then through a lemon grove to the lovely white sand beach. It was a properly European beach so our hotel had its own squadron of parasols and beach chairs, all striped the same and blazoned with its name. Certainly civilized. Of course everyone went crazy absorbing sun, taking lemons from the grove, floating in the aquamarine water, and relishing the delicious simple wines.

Calabria is a wonder of cultivation, and P had selected restaurants and trips that ensured we'd see the maximum marvels of the area. The area where we were was chock full of fields growing the famous red onions, tomatoes, olives, lemons, hot peppers, grapes. Hedges of rosemary bloomed everywhere, and the roadsides were choked with mint. The many dinners we had together took well advantage of this, serving up local seafood flavored with all the abundant vegetables and herbs. One place we went to, called Agriturismo Villani, served only food that had been grown and prepared in the immediate region- fresh sheep cheeses, hams of all sorts, glorious firm eggplants roasted and drizzled in olive oil, zucchini blossoms & frittatas. Served with a view of the sea or in an ancient courtyard ringed with flowering hedges, it was an unforgettable experience.

Between all the eating we held three concerts, each in a different sort of church with its own acoustics. In Tropea, a tiny seaside village, the mayor of the town attended and we were filmed for the local news as we sang in their "cathedral" (stop imagining Notre Dame and downscale a lot). In Lamezia Terme we sang in the lemon-colored Rococo church where P and the director had gotten married, and the audience was full of P's relatives. In Gerace, a medieval city perched on a hill, we sang in a church built by the Normans nearly a thousand years ago. The building, the largest religious building in Calabria, threw our song up into the rafters so that it was as loud in the back as it was next to us, but we could barely hear the person next to us singing. We sang on the ferry from Sicily, we sang in the peaceful church amid the pines at Certosa, a monastary high in the hills. We sang in the mass at Lamezia Terme on the day of a festival where the street had been converted into a market selling pistachio cookies, slices of coconut, nuts & candied fruits, and all sorts of other baubles.

This part of Italy is definitely not easy to get to or to explore, especially the way we were doing it. We had several bus mishaps due to the twisted hairpin roads that interlace the spine of this part of the country, and other than two disgruntled women from New Orleans, I met not a single other American. The beach where we were was mostly filled with Italian holiday-goers except for one Russian family, and it was pretty clear that almost everywhere we went it was not a place that tourists tended to visit. The only exception was Taormina, a village in Sicily that's been frequented by famous foreigners for some time now. After having been traipsing the streets of Lamezia Terme, it was a bit odd to be in a place where there were signs in German and people could speak a few words of English. That's where I skipped out on the museum and wandered down the narrow streets until I found the public garden, a marvel of follies and topiary hedges where Italian kids piled upon each other in giggling heaps, and the view of Etna and the curving coastline was framed by cedar trees and a fluorescent bougainvillea hedge in full bloom.

Unlike the first trip to Italy where I was lost and lonely in the language, and where I didn't have the proper summer travel clothes, I could speak and understand enough to actually grasp what was going on. It also helped to have light summer dresses and sandals that can handle the cobblestones and narrow streets. On our last day in Bologna I remembered the afternoon 4 years ago when I'd been alone and sweltering in Bologna, not sure what to do except wait for the bus to the airport. This time I lunched with a delightful group of people (oh, such pizza!), explored with enthusiasm, and absorbed the vibrancy of the city with happiness before one last ice cream and then back to the airport. Overall it was one of the most memorable choir trips ever. I returned slightly more brown, with a suitcase full of lemons and delicious jams and liqueurs, my Icelandic markedly better, and having shared an incredible experience with an extremely varied group. That's what travel should be about.

so, do you like bruises?

While in Italy, I discovered the BEST way to get them, and it also happens to be a ton of fun. Here’s how to do it: Start in Ortisei, and head to the hills where a vintage chairlift from the 50’s creaks its way up a mountainside. A venerable gentleman there will rent you a one-person wooden toboggan with smooth metal runners. Climb aboard this single-chair lift after the thick plaid woolen blanket has been tucked on the seat, following your sled that’s been put on the previous chair.

Admire the view from the lift as it chugs the way up the hill. Meditate in the solitary silence as you progress majestically up the hill in your little individual seat and the mountains reveal themselves through the pines. Note the odd items traveling on the chairs going down the hill- stacks of blankets returning to the bottom, crates of bottles, bunches of trekking poles, sleds. At the top of the hill, clamber out and grab your sled. If desired, have a beer at the top and feast on the incredible view, the Alpensun, the fresh flavors of pine and moss. When you’re ready, head to the top of the groomed sledding track and settle into the sled.

Now, for maximum bruise potential, swollen ankles, and snow-up-the-trousers, this must be done with a largeish group, and everyone has to start down the hill at once, jockeying for positions. It’s even better if one person goes on a little ahead to the first turn to take action shots of the inevitable pileups and tip-overs.

This activity probably sounds totally idiotic but it was so hilariously fun that on the first trip when I hit a snowbank hard enough to shoot off the sled and end up on the far side, I was laughing so hard I couldn’t answer when asked if all my limbs were still in place. It’s a ridiculously dangerous idea to attempt to pull off hairpin downhill turns in a barely steerable sled with no safety features, but zipping down the straight parts with the mountains and sparkly sky above is glorious. With a total groomed sled-run of 4 miles, It’s the on-steroids version of sledding as a kid, without the work of hauling the sled back up the hill. We spent an entire day on the hillside.

I did this a week ago and am still bearing the wounds of having my ankle driven over, running into someone else so hard they ended up on the opposite side of snowbank, and various other spills that have resulted in bruises so florid that one looks like I’ve gotten a large tattoo of a purple cabbage on a certain body part. My right shin was so ravaged by the activity that I was even unable to downhill ski the last two days of the trip. In spite of the war wounds that have caused much amusement to those who were on the trip and those who only have seen the aftermath, I definitely would do it again!